


Blood, Guts and Chocolate Cake

by bookish_sister, orphan_account



Series: A Series Of Genderbent Events [2]
Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV)
Genre: Gen, Genderbending, Menstruation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 15:09:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15932963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookish_sister/pseuds/bookish_sister, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There are worse things then spending your birthday in a jail cell. You could have your first menstruation in a jail cell.





	Blood, Guts and Chocolate Cake

**Blood, Guts and Chocolate Cake**

**-KB-**

The day after Klaudia Baudelaire turned twelve, she had an exact way that she wanted her thirteenth birthday to go. She wanted to wake up to fresh blueberry pancakes, then go to Briny Beach with her parents and brothers, and finally end the day with chocolate cake, presents, and a good book.

 

She hadn’t wanted to spend it in a jail cell, convicted for a crime she didn’t commit, about to be burned at the stake in a day, with no clue where her friends are, while both of her brothers regarded her with pity.

 

The fact that her stomach felt like it was on fire didn’t help in the slightest.

 

“Oh, Dia, I had no idea,” Vincent said softly.

 

“ _Me neither,_ ” Sully babbled.

 

Klaudia pushed down the spike of anger that rose in her chest at these words.

 

“It’s okay,” she told them solemnly. “I forgot it too.” Klaudia sunk to the bench, the pangs in her stomach growing stronger in her grief.

 

The bench creaked softly. Klaudia turned to see Sully sitting on her right side. He rested a tiny, chubby hand on her forearm and leaned against her bicep. Vincent joined them on Klaudia’s left side. He put his arm around her shoulder. She leaned her head against his.

 

Her stomach churned with dread and pain.

 

They must’ve sat like that for a full minute before the door burst open. Klaudia, Vincent and Sully all looked over to see Helena clumsily traipsing towards their cell.

 

“Oh, Baudelaires!” she cried, grabbing hold of the bars as if they were a lifeline. Vincent rushed over to her. Sully toddled just behind him. Klaudia did not rush over. She didn’t even stand. Instead, she held a hand to her stomach and laid against the wall.

 

“I tried to vouch for you three, really I did,” Helena continued tearfully, “but the Council of Elders threatened to burn me along with you if I didn’t stop, so I decided to ask Officer Lucio if I could come and visit you instead. I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you, Baudelaires.”

 

“ _You did you best, Helena,_ ” Sully said, clutching the hem of Helena’s skirt.

 

“Sully’s right, Helena,” Vincent agreed. “You’ve done so much for us, and we are extremely grateful. Right, Klaudia?”

 

Klaudia grunted in pain.

 

“Klaudia?” Vincent turned to see his younger laying on the bench, her face pale and flushed, tightly clutching her stomach.

 

“Klaudia!” Vincent shouted, at her side within seconds. “Klaudia, are you alright?!”

 

Klaudia’s face twisted in discomfort. “Stop yelling,” she groaned. “It hurts.”

 

“What hurts?” Vincent asked, softer this time.

 

Klaudia grunted again, and pointed to her abdomen.

 

“Your stomach?” Vincent asked.

 

Klaudia nodded, then pointed further down. Vincent’s eyes lit up, not because of excitement, but from understanding.

 

“Guys, I think it’s her time,” Vincent said to Helena and Sully. Helena gasped softly while Sully just stared at his older brother in confusion.

 

“ _Her time?_ ” Sully repeated, confused and worried.

 

“Of the month, Sully,” the eldest Baudelaire elaborated. “She’s not dying.”

 

“Y’siam,” Klaudia mumbled weakly.

 

Vincent rolled his eyes and turned to Helena, who had been watching them with wide eyes.

 

“Helena, does this town have any pain medicine?” he asked.

 

“Oh, um, yes, it does!” Helena replied triumphantly. She then deflated as she told them, “but they’re at my house, and Officer Lucio said that once I left, I couldn’t come back.”

 

Klaudia whined angrily.

 

“I’m so sorry, Klaudia,” Helena said softly. “If I had known you were going to, er, come on…”

 

Klaudia sighed, then pushed herself up onto her elbows.

 

“It’s not your fault, Helena,” she said, hoping to reassure her timid guardian. “It snuck up on all of us.”

 

“ _Vincent?_ ”

 

The youngest Baudelaire’s quizzical squeak drew their attention back to Vincent, who was already tying his curly, shoulder-length hair back with the violet ribbon he kept on his wrist.

 

A small smile graced Klaudia’s face. Vincent was coming up with a plan.

 

Vincent was quiet for a full minute, then his eyes flew open. He turned to Helena.

 

“There’s a cloth and some tape on that desk,” he said, pointing to the items. “I need them.”

 

Helena nodded, then moved to retrieve them.

 

Sully looked up at Vincent. “ _What do you need those things for?_ ” he asked.

 

Vincent swallowed nervously. “I can’t really tell you, Sully,” he told the youngest Baudelaire as his cheeks turned a bit pink, “but just trust me when I say it will help Klaudia.”

 

Helena returned with the items and stuck them through the bars of the cage.

 

“Oh! I almost forgot!” She reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out two small pieces of paper. “I found these while I was sweeping under the Nevermore Tree, which I probably have to get back to.”

 

Vincent took the slips of paper from Helena and, after examining them with a smile, pocketed them. “Thank you so much, Helena,” he said. “For everything.”

 

Helena smiled back. “Good luck, Baudelaires,” she said softly, before turning to leave.

 

Once she was gone, Vincent picked up the cloth and tape.

 

“First things first.” He turned to Klaudia, who had laid back down on the bench with her eyes closed. “Klaudia, I need you to pull down your skirt.”

 

Klaudia’s eyes snapped open. She shot up into a sitting position and gave Vincent a weird look.

 

“What?!” Klaudia yelped.

 

“ _Huh?!_ ” Sully shrieked in agreement.

 

Vincent blushed. “Klaudia, you have to trust me, I’m trying to help you!”

 

Klaudia jumped to her feet. “How would that hel-”

 

The middle Baudelaire’s face paled drastically. She wrapped her arms around her abdomen, her knees buckling slightly. She moaned softly from pain and looked down at her skirt.

 

“Oh…” Klaudia said in a soft, toneless voice.

 

Vincent immediately sprung into action.

 

“Klaudia, sit down on the bench. Sully, cover your eyes.”

 

The two younger Baudelaires did as they were told while Vincent folded the cloth in half. He knelt next to Klaudia’s legs.

 

“Alright, you have to take your skirt off so I can do this, okay?” he told her.

 

Klaudia exhaled shakily, then nodded. Pushing herself up slightly, she lowered her skirt to her knees.

 

Vincent inhaled sharply. There was a red thumb-sized spot in the middle of his sister’s underwear. He cursed under his breath.

 

“What? What is it?” Klaudia asked, trying to lean over so she could see what had caused Vincent to have such a reaction.

 

“Look, Klaudia, you’re going to have to pull down your underwear,” Vincent said softly.

 

It was Klaudia’s turn to blush. “Alright,” she said, pulling her undergarments down to her knees, causing her skirt to fall near her ankles. Klaudia yelped as she saw the small puddle of blood that had formed.

 

“ _What‘s wrong?_ ” Sully asked.

 

“Nothing, Sully,” Vincent said, “Klaudia’s just going through something that all young women go through. Remember, when we were at Prufrock, when Dulcie had that drastic mood change?”

 

“Oh, yeah, I do remember that!” Klaudia exclaimed. “She was extremely angry at everything for two consecutive days.” She turned toward Vincent. “Will that happen to me?”

 

“We’ll figure that out later,” Vincent promised. “First,” he grabbed the folded cloth, “we need to take care of this.”

 

Klaudia’s eyes sparkled, a sign that Vincent recognized as his younger sister remembering something she’d read.

 

“You know, I remember reading a book of women’s history,” she recounted as Vincent pressed the cloth against the tiny pool of blood. “During World War I, they used a revolutionized version of women’s products made of cotton bandages. I believe the book called them ‘tampons’.”

 

A bright red hue colored Vincent’s cheeks. “Yeah, I don’t think you’re ready for those yet, Klaudia,” he said breathlessly. He ripped two long strips of tape of off the roll and looped them around the top and bottom of the cloth so that it wouldn’t fall off of Klaudia’s undergarments.

 

“There,” Vincent said triumphantly.

 

“Can I pull my underwear up now?” Klaudia asked.

 

“Yes, you can,” Vincent replied, biting back a laugh.

 

“ _Does that mean I can take my hands off of my eyes?_ ” Sully inquired.

 

Vincent waited until Klaudia had both her underwear and her skirt intact around her waist before giving Sully the affirmative. Sully lowered his hands and walked over to Klaudia as quickly as he could. He wrapped his hands around her leg.

 

“ _Are you okay?_ ” Sully asked softly.

 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Klaudia told him.

 

The sound of boots stomping down the stairs startled the Baudelaires. They looked up to see Countess Olga, still in her Detective Dupin disguise, walking towards them with a tray that held very dry-looking bread and cup of disgusting-looking water.

 

“I hate to intrude on your little _siblings moment_ ,” Dupin said sarcastically, “but I have food for you little prison brats.” She held up the tray. “Stale bread and water with a hint of dirt.”

 

Klaudia’s nose wrinkled at that. While yes, she was hungry, stale bread and dirty water did not sound appealing to her stomach. She needed a break, as most adolescents did after a period of prolonged stress.

 

“Ugh, I want cake…”

 

“Cake is a lie,” Dupin rasped. “And so are your pathetic lives. Once two of you burn at the stake, the Baudelaire fortune _will_ be mine, and you’ll all go down as murderers!”

 

“ _You’ll never get our money!_ ” Sully shrieked angrily.

 

“If not your money, I’ll get something else.” She leaned close to the bars of the cell. “A lovely little boy trapped in a cage, forced to do my bidding. Doesn’t that sound _wonderful_?”

 

“You’re despicable!” Vincent spat. “The least you could do is give us a proper last meal.”

 

Dupin shoved the tray against the small slot in the cage. Klaudia huffed angrily and snatched the stale bread and dirty water off of the tray and set them on the bench, causing them to make two loud _thunks_.

 

Dupin raised an eyebrow. “Huffy much?”

 

Klaudia scoffed and dropped down on the bench next to the awful food.

 

“What’s with her?” Dupin asked.

 

“Girl things,” Vincent sighed.

 

“It feels like my uterus exploded,” Klaudia muttered bitterly.

 

“Just lay down, it’ll go away,” Dupin said as she turned to go back upstairs.

 

Vincent watched as she left, and then turned to Klaudia, who was watching as well.

 

“It’s not gonna go away, is it?” Klaudia asked, looking younger than she had in months.

 

“No, Klaudia,” Vincent replied softly, then turned to look at the bread and water that rested beside his sister. A metaphorical light bulb went off in his head and, after checking to make sure his ribbon was in place, he addressed his siblings.

 

“Klaudia, Sully, I have an idea.”


End file.
